For more than 15 years, Grant K. Gibson has been designing houses. The 39-year-old designer, who is now based in San Francisco, hails from Los Angeles and takes pride in designing living spaces representing his clients’ personalities, tastes, and experiences. Now, he’s releasing The Curated Home, a book that brings readers behind the scenes of his development process and shows them how to make a timeless, curated interior that will last for years.

Gibson offers some pointers on where to begin when working on design projects. Here are his six top tips for “tweaking your décor,” whether you’re furnishing a new home, upgrading your kitchen, or just looking for some inspiration to freshen up your rental:

• Determine Your Style

How do you like a spot to make you feel? Examine your closet to help you work out your personal style. Do you want items that are more personalised or items that are more casual and comfortable? If you have a particular colour or style preference? Making a list of keywords that explain how you want a space to feel is another way to work out your theme. Are you looking for something classic, formal, or sophisticated? Are you looking for something fun, entertaining, and inviting? Is it possible to be monochrome, minimalist, and modern at the same time?

Keep track of design inspirations in all aspects of your life. When I’m hired to help clients design the interiors of their homes, I often use these as a starting point for discussion. Recall a hotel or restaurant where you’ve stayed or dined that especially piqued your interest. It may have been a minimalist interior from your trip to Japan or a New York clubby bar with worn leather chairs.

• Figure out What You Don’t Like

It is much easier for people to communicate their dissatisfaction. We may exclude certain items and focus on others by factoring dislikes into the equation. A large-scale print, for example, could remind you of something from your childhood that you don’t want to see in your home. A wingback chair, on the other hand, can conjure up images of being sent to time-out for pulling your sister’s hair. Similarly, a specific colour might remind you of a previous design trend that you don’t want to repeat. These memories and responses are deeply personal and unique, but they also form our preferences.

• Build Around Your Space

The importance of space planning, which affects the scale, cannot be overstated. People often use furniture that is either too big or too small for space. The large-scale furnishings that saturate today’s interiors, I like to blame on a specific retail business. Build your room around the furniture you already have. Consider the balance of a space. Consider creating areas for various activities in larger spaces, such as a conversational seating area, a television viewing area, and a work area with a desk or table for projects or games. Even though I love symmetry, making it symmetrical can make things feel too contrived.

• Sample Your Paint

Can paint to use is one of the most important and cost-effective choices you can make. The right colour choices pull spaces together in a satisfying way. Take a look at the whole building. You run the risk of having disjointed rooms if you paint one room at a time. Consider how colour affects our emotions. People may be made to feel good, calm, or irritated by those colours. I’ve been known to offer interior doors a fresh coat of paint.

When considering choices, try out actual paint colours on your walls. Examine them in natural light, in the morning, and at night. A favourite colour that worked for one project might not work for another. What worked in your friend’s house might not work in yours. The paint store chips are an excellent place to start, but what looks good on paper can not translate well into your home. Try a few different hues on the wall with white paints, paying particular attention to the undertones. Pinks, blacks, and yellows may be used as accent colours. Its surroundings heavily influence the temperature of the light. Green and blue reflections can be created by vegetation and the sky on your interior walls

• Mix High and Low Price Points

Pedigree doesn’t always imply superiority (whether it be art, furniture or dogs). Consider buying art or furniture from an “unknown” artist or designer based on shape, comfort, and how well the art of furniture suits your needs. The most insignificant things in a space may have the most soul and be the most beautiful. Mixing high and low price points is not a bad idea. Nothing needs to be valuable to be necessary. Splurging on something you enjoy has the opposite effect.

• Start from the Ground Up

It’s easy to get overwhelmed by design. People frequently want to know where they should begin. I always recommend starting from the ground up when designing a room: Make a decision about the floor covering. If you like hardwood floors, area rugs, marble, brick, or wall-to-wall carpeting, it doesn’t matter. How you think of your floor first will decide how other pieces are layered in the room. You have more colour and upholstery choices if you choose a neutral tone or natural fibre with little shade. You can draw colours from an antique rug to create a colour palette if you start with one. It’s important to schedule these events in concert; otherwise, you’ll end up with the circus effect, where there are so many things going on, and the room as a whole doesn’t work together. Starting with a sofa or upholstered chairs instantly limits your look. With thousands, if not hundreds, of options, anything like an area rug provides more versatility. This is where you can choose your options and begin layering bits. Making the final floor covering decision first, then layering, is a much simpler strategy.

If you wish for an interior design career or interior designing jobs, education from a reputable institution is necessary. JD Institute OF Fashion Technology, one of the most premium institutes with a legacy of 32 years devoted to art or creativity, provides just the right opportunity with industry-based courses like interior designing course etc., enrol now!